The Definition of Insanity
by Steven Bolt
Summary: This was originally going to be a companion fic to Spamlionofdoom's "Photography At It's Finest" (which you should read, if you haven't already), but since we want a different direction for the stories, these two fics are now RIVALS! *thunderclap* I'll be trying to keep up with the other story as well as I can.
1. Why We Can't Have Nice Things

What was that crazy bitch doing? Was she damaged in some way? Granted, Rowan admired her gumption, but charging Vaas head-on was a one way ticket to fucked. Rowan had followed the sound of the motorcade to the beach where he'd planned to ambush Vaas and try to find out where Paul was being held. When the bastard brought twenty men with him, Rowan had backed off and hid in the bushes. It was then that he'd spotted the redhead hiding almost directly below the cliff he was perched on.

Rowan checked his gun. He had six shots in the revolver's cylinder and only five extras. Even if his aim was perfect, he couldn't hope to take all of them. He had the knife he stole from the passed-out pirate he'd encountered last night, but he'd need to be incredibly stealthy and incredibly batshit in order to take out enough of them that would let him make use of the revolver. And a crazed jungle Batman, Rowan was not.

He was about to try and shove the stalled car on the road down the cliff to cause a distraction, but then all hell broke loose. When Vaas had started breaking shit, Rowan had assumed that the owner would have the good sense to stay put. Guess not. The woman had leapt on Vaas like an angry tiger and hit him with a glorious left hook. His men looked torn between opening fire and bursting out laughing. He recovered quickly and knocked her out cold.

Rowan sighed. There was nothing he could do for her at this point. Vaas hauled her into a Jeep and screamed at a few of his men to burn what was left if the woman's things. The others hopped into their cars to follow him back to camp. Four men stayed behind and began gathering the woman's things into a pile. Four, he could deal with.

Rowan unsheathed his knife and slid down the hillside into the foliage surrounding the beach. By a stroke of dumb luck, one of the pirates staggered off to take a leak and stopped three feet from where Rowan crouched. No one saw him die. With the body hidden in the bushes, Rowan darted out of the shrubs and hid behind the woman's makeshift shelter. He crept around a corner to find himself face to face with the largest of the men. The man seemed shocked to see him, and Rowan took advantage if his hesitation. He slammed his knife into the brute's throat and clamped a hand over his mouth. He managed to drag the body behind the shelter, but the other two had noticed their companion's disappearance. Rowan heard shouting as they drew closer and pulle his revolver free.

Rowan wheeled around the corner with a blood-curdling cry and caught the first man by surprise. Before he could fire his gun, the man's face was mangled and wrent by a .44 round. The other man lunged with a machete, but Rowan's training had taught him to count this. He jumped back out of the blade's reach and fired into the man's chest. He staggered and choked as he fell, desperately trying to grasp his weapon. Rowan rushed forward and slammed his knee into the man's face, knocking him backwards into the sand. A few thrusts of the knife silenced his gargles curses.

Rowan picked through the wreckage of the campsite, finding little of use outside of a first aid kit and a jungle-grade machete, obviously never used, in a nylon friction sheath. As he exited the ramshackle hut, he heard something crush under his feet. He looked down and found the broken pieces of a rather expensive looking digital camera. He picked it up and examined it. Completely irreparable, but upon closer inspection, he saw the memory card was still intact. He slipped it into a plastic bag and put it in his pack. If Vaas was taking the woman to his camp, he could probably find Paul there, too. He strapped the machete across his back and reloaded his gun. Looks like he was on the warpath.

He took a last look around and saw a trunk with a lable scrawled on it in marker:

"Property of Thelma Dukes."

Thelma. So now he knew her name.


	2. Crazed Jungle Batman

"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck fuckfuck!" Rowan wasn't sure when or how he'd pissed off the beings on high, but he swore to sacrifice the next goat he came across to appease them. A very large and very angry bear was hot on his heels, and Rowan's attempt to free Thelma from her cage in one of the pirate outposts had gone awry when the ursine version of The Incredible Hulk had come out of nowhere. (How something that large managed to sneak was beyond him.) Now, Rowan had abandoned his recon mission in favor of not discovering if a bear does in fact shit in the woods. The hard way. He came tearing down one of the mountainsides hills and leapt onto a branch of a tall tree, hoping the bear wouldn't be able to stop in time and tumble to it's doom. What he didn't count on was the thud.

Rowan managed to hoist himself onto the branch and turn just in time to see a truly bewildered Vaas stepping out of a car to examine the carcass. His two guards hopped from the back of the Jeep and Rowan could see a gagged woman with flaming red hair tied up in the back. Vaas, seemingly very impressed with his kill, thankfully didn't notice Rowan crouching unsteadily on a tree limb a few feet off the road.

"Another fucking bear!" He exclaimed. "You see this?" He said to one of his guards. "This is why I drive." Rowan took aim and fired his revolver, not wanting to waste the chance. unfortunately, his bobbing footing threw off his aim and the guard on the left fell to the ground. Vaas let out a scream of "'EY!" but Rowan leapt from his tree and caught Vaas by his belt. Rowan's feet didn't make the ledge, however, and they both slid rapidly over the edge. Vaas's guard grabbed his arm, but Rowan seized the guardrail and gave Vaas a good yank. He and the other man tumbled down the hill and Rowan wasted no time in sprinting to the truck and freeing the woman.

"Thelma Dukes?" He asked hurriedly.

"Yes." She responded, confused. "Who are-"

"'EY! I'm gonna get you for that, you fuck! I LIKE this belt!" The angry voice from the bottom of the hill told Rowan that they had very little time.

"Car. Now." He told Thelma. She leapt into the passenger seat and told him to floor it. They sped off, putting as much distance between them and Vaas as possible. They ended up in one of the Rakyat territories and pushed the car over a bridge to prevent Vaas from using it to find them.

"Okay," Thelma asked him. "Number one: Thank you. Number two: Who the fuck are you?"

"My name is Rowan Arland. I'm... Well, I'm a soldier. Kind of. The point is, I'm trying to get off this island. But I need to find a friend of mine first." He stopped. Maybe the woman had heard Vaas or his men discussing the chopper he'd arrived on. "By any chance, did you happen to catch any talk about a helicopter?" Thelma shook her head. "What about a captured pilot?" Another shake. Rowan sighed. "Alright, then. We can talk more later. We need to find somewhere we won't be found if Vaas comes looking."

"Hold on a second there, buddy. How do I know I can trust you?"

"Two things." He said. "One: I'm the only friend you've got right now and I know more about this island than you do. Two: Consider this an offer of good faith." He pulled the memory card from his pack and handed it to her. "What do you say?"

"Fucking little prick. I like this belt."

Vaas hauled himself back up the side of the hill and began searching himself for injuries. His tumble down the hill had left a few nasty cuts that he was certain he'd feel after he came down a little, and his black eye throbbed horribly. As Vaas began to walk down the road, He spoke to himself out loud.

"I tell you, I get no respect. I give these people a chance, try to show them 'ey, this Vaas, he's not such a bad guy. And how do they repay me? They steal my car and ruin my favorite belt. I swear to God!" He wheeled about and fired randomly into the forest. A cry of pain somewhere in the underbrush told him he'd hit something. Eh. Not his concern. Shouldn't have been in front of his bullet.

He picked his way along the road, following the tire tracks. He continued to ramble to all and sundry.

"I'm going to find them, and I'm going to shoot them. Then, I'm going to talk to them, then I'll shoot them again. Then, I'll cut them into pieces, put the pieces in a fire, piss on them, AND FUCKING SHOOT THE PIECES AGAIN! Jordan ! Rikki! Where the fuck is my- Oh yea." He vaguely recalled a gunshot wound and a broken neck regarding his two henchmen. But for Vaas, it was THDNC: Too high, do not care. Still, thoughts of the man in the tree occasionally lingered in his mind. "Think you can come to MY island and take what you want, fucker? Think you can steal what I rightfully stole? NO! And I'll tell you why, you son of a bitch!" He was screaming at a tree, of all things, but he didn't care. If it had a problem, it could walk away. Stupid tree. "MY FUCKING LIFE is nothing but a heartache! You are NOTHING but a mistake! And I'm going to cut you open, no matter what Hoyt says! You know why? BECAUSE I FUCKING WANT IT THAT WAY!"

He stalked back toward his compound, still grumbling. He liked that belt.

They's been hiking through the hills for an hour now, getting aquainted. Rowan learned that Thelma had been a photojournalist before she'd been captured and that's what brought her to Rook Island.

"What about you?" She asked. "You mentioned that you were a soldier?" He hesitated to tell her, but he wanted her to trust him.

"I'm ex-Asutralian military. I was discharged when they claimed that I'd been demonstrating 'seditious behavior'."

"Oh..." She was quiet for a moment. "What did you do?" She asked hesitantly.

"Punched my CO in the face." Her eyes went wide and he explained. "We'd captured a few deserters and he was beating them. Standard protocol is to write them up and detain them until they can be processed and ejected if need be. He went into a rage, knocking one of them senseless." Rowan heaved an angry sigh. "They were just a couple of kids. They heard that they were to be deployed and they panicked. I stepped in, and next thing you know, I'm out on my ass.

"I'm sorry... So how'd you end up here?"

"I had a friend, a pilot named Paul Horton. I still came around to visit some of the boys in my squad when they had down time. Paul had the genius idea to take one of the choppers up for a spin, and I tagged along. While we're up, we get a distress call from one of the ships that was captured by Hoyt's men."

"Hoyt?" She inquired.

"The big boss around here. Even Vaas has someone to shove him around." She looked stunned. Rowan guessed the idea of Vaas taking orders from anyone and actually listening was astounding. "Think about it." He said. "Vaas couldn't manage all this by himself. He's too volatile. If he was in charge, it would be pretty short lived. No, he takes orders from a man named Hoyt Vaulker. I ran into some men who were talking about him. They weren't pirates, though. Soldiers. They wore yellow striped uniforms and they were WAY more well-equipped than the guys here. I don't know where they're based put of, but I haven't seen anty since, so I'm gonna assume that they were just here on business."


End file.
